


The Wight of Bag End

by rho_nin



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Post-Battle of Five Armies, Angst, Bilbo Baggins is a little shit, Fake Character Death, Fix-It, Gen, Miscommunication, Mistaken Character Death, NOT a death fic but it does talk about mourning a lot, Not Really Character Death, Post-Battle of Five Armies, he may be middle aged and most of the pranks are unintentional but that DOES change, silly situations we all pretend are serious, the dwarves believe bilbo to be dead and shenanigans ensue, wrote the bit in hobbiton while listening to ABBA so that's interesting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22030273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rho_nin/pseuds/rho_nin
Summary: In which Bilbo ghosts the dwarves in more ways than one after the Battle of Five Armies, only to find himself in a very awkward position a few years later.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 109





	1. Return

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Journey Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/608572) by [tirsynni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tirsynni/pseuds/tirsynni). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distress at the foot of the Lonely Mountain and the beginning of all ensuing chaos. The Gaffer has an absolute ball.

Bilbo woke alone on Ravenhill to a broad, clear sky above him. The wind swept through him, whistling through and over the barren rocks that he was lying on. He shivered with the cold and curled closer in on himself, trying to imagine what his own bed at Bag-End felt like. It had been so very long since he had last slept in it.

But the reality of Ravenhill and its recent history returned to him all too quickly (indeed, he had not successfully forgotten it in the first place) and his sat up, rubbing at a spot on his head that throbbed and seemed to be leaking. He was quite glad not to be dead, though he was very confused and more than a bit anxious, what with his solitude and Thorin's parting words at the wall in front of the Gate.

Of course, he was not entirely alone. The bodies of goblins and wargs were strewn about the battlefield like the clothes of little hobbit children in their room, tossed carelessly in any direction after being cast off. None of them appeared to have any life in them, though he thought he spotted the ragged rise and fall of a warg's immense chest before it fell still. There seemed to be no living elves, dwarves, or men anywhere near him either, though to them he would not have objected. He suspected he could find the camp still down in the plain, but it was a while off, and his eyes were drawn instead to the great to-do about the Gate.

Even from this distance, Bilbo could see dwarves moving quickly to remove the wall over which Thorin had dangled him only a few days ago. It was eerily silent. The dwarves did not sing a single note and though there was haste and duty in their movements, there was no joy such that Bilbo had seen in Thorin's Company when they built it.

"If this is victory," he thought to himself, "it is a sorry business."

It was then that the noises of booted footsteps on stone reached his ears, and he levered himself upright using one of the nearby boulders.

He did his best to call out to the man who he could just see around the stone, but all that he managed was a choked "What news?" before his voice gave out entirely. Bilbo had taken more than just an incidental blow to the head, for uncontrolled falls onto rocks are never kind to the body, no matter what manner of mail it wears. He would later learn about the vulnerabilities of ribs, but for the moment he was content to pant for air behind his boulder.

Still, the man looked over at the boulder, where Bilbo could not be entirely seen, and said in a stilted voice, "Who is it that speaks from the stones? If it is Bilbo Baggins, or if you know of him, I would very much like to speak with you, and so would many others, all of whom would take to long to name."

At this, Bilbo shrunk back behind his rock and covered his mouth with both hands. He could imagine who would want to speak with him all too well; the feeling would be mutual but for the change that had overtaken the dwarves under the mountain. The ring pressed against his face as he tried to muffle his gasps for air and a plan began to form in his mind.

He peered out from behind his rock again. The man looked around again, sighed, and set off in a different direction. He was walking away from the camp and, Bilbo thought, to the other side of Ravenhill, so he would not be there to hear Bilbo gasping for air as he made his way back.

With as much haste as he could muster, Bilbo set off toward the plain. He had to stop and start again more than once, but before long he forded the river to the camp in which he had given away the Arkenstone, which hadn't done much good.

There was more than just men and elves, now. Dwarves of the Iron Hills swarmed the camp, a small band of eagles still lurked near the outskirts (though they looked ready to leave), and Beorn towered over all of them. Bilbo crept through the camp, drawn to a hubbub around one of several tents. The crowd was made up chiefly of dwarves, all of whom looked tired and battered. They still wore the armor in which they had marched into Erebor, though many a breastplate bore scratches and scrapes and a few helmets were dented. Only one dwarf did not wear armor, and the rest of them were silent as he spoke.

"The King Under the Mountain is not dying," snapped the unarmored dwarf, "and if anyone has told you otherwise, they are bold liars, or their source is. He is weak and I shouldn't wonder if he can never lift a sword again properly, but that is all."

This was not a courtly dwarf.

There was little Bilbo could think to ask about, other than whether Thorin had forgiven him, but he did not have much hope for it and it would unmask him quickly. Instead, he turned towards the other medical tents, hoping not to find anyone he knew.

"Though," he thought to himself, "not finding them may be much worse."

He tried not to think on that much more.

The first tent he looked into was filled to the brim with elves, some of which he recognized from burglarizing Thranduil's palace. He did not know their names, however, and moved on. The next tent was filled with more of Dain's dwarves, who grumbled to each other (when they could talk).

It was not until the last tent that he found anyone he truly knew: Fili and Kili lay next to each other, their eyes half closed. Bilbo summoned all his stealth and slid beyond the tent flap, his heart pounding. The youngest of the dwarves had never been truly adversarial to him, but Thorin was still their uncle and it could easily have been argued that Bilbo had betrayed the whole party (or at least the line of Durin, if one was inclined to split hairs) by gifting Bard the Arkenstone. Furthermore, the physicians could not have been far from their patients, and any disturbance might have drawn their attention.

Bilbo had never been one for children, but he remembered his own parents well enough to recall how to check for fever. He rested the back of his hand on their foreheads; first Fili, who looked dreadful but certainly asleep, and then Kili, who seemed half-awake for his mutterings and the movement of his eyes.

Fili did not stir and was not warm enough to frighten Bilbo, but Kili had a roaring fever and his eyes twitched until they were nearly open. For a moment, Bilbo forgot all about the ring and he froze, his hand still on Kili's brow. Kili lifted a hand to grip Bilbo's, but stopped half-way there with a groan; upon inspection, Bilbo saw that he was bleeding from that side. Crimson stained his bandages.

Murmuring a song conjured from half-remembered dreams, Bilbo tucked Kili back in and took his leave.

* * *

Finding Gandalf took much more time. When at last Bilbo found him, the wizard was sitting at a fire with no one else around, puffing absently on a pipe. He seemed to be doing nothing else but staring at the flames, and Bilbo realized that even had he not had his ring, Gandalf would not have seen him.

He took a seat next to Gandalf on a log, wishing that he had saved his pipe, and slid off his ring. "Gandalf," he murmured.

The wizard choked on the smoke from his pipe and, wheezing, reached for Bilbo's arm. He squeezed until Bilbo pulled out of his grip. "My dear boy," said Gandalf, "where on earth have you been?"

"Up on Ravenhill," Bilbo replied readily. "I took a blow to the head, I'm afraid, and only woke a little while ago. I've seen already that the dwarves are alright, and I was hoping to leave now."

"Leave?" echoed Gandalf. He still seemed slightly dazed and had returned to his pipe, staring at Bilbo unblinkingly.

"Yes. Please, Gandalf, I want to go home to the Shire." The Tookish part of him had receded slowly as he had walked through the camp. He was, once more, a Baggins, through and through (though still a Baggins who had stolen from dwarves, which is not altogether an easy task and can be guaranteed to change a hobbit), and he wanted to go back to his nice feather bed in his warm hobbit-hole and his garden. He missed the hobbit children running through the Shire, leaving all manner of mischief in their wake. He missed the peace of a Tuesday afternoon walk through the woods, the feeling of soft, un-scorched undergrowth tickling the soles of his feet. He missed, in summary, all that he had left behind, and he was not afraid to say so.

At last, the unfamiliar expression on Gandalf's face eased into one of intense focus. "Thorin has been asking after you."

"I know. I crossed paths with someone looking for me."

"Wouldn't you prefer to speak with him before you left?"

Bilbo shook his head, folding his hands into his armpits. "I rather think he's said all he's needed to say." He dropped his gaze to the dirt below him. "I know the facts of the matter, and I have no desire to face Thorin again. I've had time to think it over as I was walking back and—" His eyes burned and a lump choked his throat. Hot tears flowed down his face and he tucked his head between his knees.

Gandalf patted him on the back, but did not speak.

"You heard what he said at the Gate," he croaked. "I am no friend of his, though I cannot say the same is true in reverse. Oh, how wretched it is to lose friends!"

"He spoke in anger," consoled Gandalf. He picked Bilbo up as if he was a child and Bilbo could not muster the the energy to object, even if he wanted to do so. "I am sure he did not go to all the trouble of asking for your presence to scold you."

Bilbo only shook his head. "I don't belong here, Gandalf. I don't belong in this world of men and dwarves and war. I have no need for treasure and no wish for violence so please, Gandalf."

“My dear boy, if nothing else, you’ve shown that you are admirably suited to adventure, though I think we could all do with less violence, in a perfect world.” Gandalf set the hobbit down and handed Bilbo his pipe, though it was a little too long for him to hold comfortably. Still, the leaf (Longbottom Leaf, it was, and particularly good Longbottom, too) was comforting. So he sat for a while longer, puffing on Gandalf’s pipe and fondling the ring in his pocket. It would be so easy to slip it on and slip off into the night, but Gandalf suspected enough about the ring already that he’d never get away with it.

“No, Gandalf. All I want is to go home and stay there.”

The wizard sighed. “I of all people should know that hobbits can never be dissuaded when their minds are made up, as yours is.”

“You’ll take me home, then?”

“Yes, my friend,” said Gandalf. “I’ll take you home now.”

* * *

Bilbo settled back into Bag End quickly and eagerly (after ejecting the Sackville-Bagginses, at any rate), much to the disquiet of his neighbors. Here was this hobbit, who had grown up in a respectable, quiet family only to go gallivanting off in the company of thirteen half-mad dwarves and a wizard! Only to come back again, right to where he’d started, though with a sword over his mantle and a mithril shirt that any other society would look on as a treasure. Here was a hobbit who haunted the hills and wandered the forest in the early morning, as if he was still looking for adventure but couldn’t bring himself to chase it down, who invited his gardener’s family in for tea and cakes and acted like not a thing had changed. What a strange hobbit Bilbo Baggins was!

Only the Gamgees and his Tookish relatives spoke to him now without any fear. A few of the hobbit children accosted him on his walks, demanding stories, so Bilbo found himself spending most of his time regaling them with tales of his adventure and, when he had exhausted his more truthful repetoire, spinning new yarns to entertain the insatiable anklebiters.

He never told them of Thorin’s rejection of him at the gate, though, and after a few years, he had almost forgotten about it himself. Not forgotten about it nearly enough, though, for it was all to easy for scenes on that wall to invade his mind in the moments he left it empty.

Still, it was only when Gandalf swept in one day to tell him that a certain company of dwarves was making its way to Hobbiton that he began to concoct an emergency plan.

* * *

Thorin and company had waited nearly a decade to visit the home of the hobbit. The path was less dangerous than it had been when they’d left Hobbiton all those years ago, but they still took their time making their way to the Shire. They wore dark, unkempt clothes and walked in close rank, hugging the shoulders of their compatriots to their own.

Bilbo had decided almost immediately that, in the event that even a single dwarf should happen on Bag End, there would be nothing in it to indicate that he was there. He took to keeping everything he’d brought with him from the Lonely Mountain in his bedroom and wandering the forest in the very armor he’d worn during the Battle of Five Armies, Sting at his hip. If a dwarf managed to get inside, the entire hobbit hole would be as Bilbo had left it, all those years ago.

Though the dwarves had to double back a few times, Balin eventually determined that Bilbo really had lived in the West Farthing, not the North or East, and they trudged ever closer to Bilbo’s old home. His kin, they expected, would have filled his home and done what they could to maintain his spirit in the same home his body had lived in. They were the recipients of some very strange looks indeed as they walked the wagon-worn roads of Hobbiton, but no one made any effort to intercept them.

Old Hamfast, bless his soul, was to take over Bag End for the foreseeable future. He would still garden, of course, but he was also to deter any dwarves he came across without giving anything away. If luck was with them, the dwarves would lose interest after a few days and Bilbo would be able to inhabit his house full time again.

When the Company arrived at Bag End, they first stared at the gate, which none of them had taken much notice of the first time around. Now, though, the more observant among them saw that it had been painted again and the garden was well-kept—maybe better than they could remember it. They’d tried so hard to cling to every memory of the burglar in the wake of his death that they’d tried to recreate what they’d seen of the hobbit hole, which hadn’t actually been all that much, when it came right down to it. Still, visiting the home of the most esteemed hobbit they’d ever known (not that they’d known very many) seemed the right thing to do. Perhaps they could apologize for not burying him properly.

Hamfast warned Bilbo as soon as he heard the thumping of Big Folk coming up the drive, so Bilbo had escaped out one of the back windows post-haste, dressed in his armor. He couldn’t very well leave it in Bag End, after all.

Thorin knocked insistently on the round door, trying to remember if it had been the same shade of green that it was now when he’d last done so.

Hamfast, as he would later tell Bilbo, opened the door politely.

Thorin looked the hobbit at the door up and down. He didn’t seem to be as well dressed as Bilbo had always made an effort to be, even in the most ridiculous of circumstances. Dirt was caked under his fingernails and his clothes were a little worn, but he wore a shopkeeper’s obligatory smile. “Thorin Oakenshield,” he introduced himself, “and my company, at your service. You are Bilbo Baggins’ kin?”

Mr. Baggins had warned the Gaffer that dwarves would ask strange things, but being mistaken for the family of his employer was certainly out there. He’d expected questions about rocks that he wouldn’t be able to answer. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I ain’t. My name is Hamfast Gamgee, and I ain’t never been mistaken for a Baggins before.”

A pause. “And yet you live in the house he lived in?”

“Yes?” Hamfast was hardly an idiot; the past tense was a dead give away. “Ain’t nothin’ against buyin’ a house in these parts.”

One of the dwarves behind him made a strangled noise. “You just live in the house of the dead? You do nothing to support his spirit here? You change the color of the walls?”

That earned them a baffled look from the hobbit—Gamgee—and a shake of the head. “S’not his house now, sir. Ain’t like he’s around to object to some paint.”

“But it’s his _house!”_ cried Kili from the back.

“And he most certainly ain’t here, Master Dwarf,” Hamfast replied calmly.

The dwarves left soon after that to wander the roads of Hobbiton.

Which was when they saw a figure they all knew to be dead disappear around a bend in the road, a flap of a green cloak in the empty air the only indication that there might have been anything there in the first place. Without the need for a single word to each other, the Company barrelled down the road at the quickest pace available to them, all skidding around the same bend, only to see nothing.

The dwarves looked in every direction they could think to look in, but there was still no sign of their burglar.

They drew closer together.

“Either that is quite the illusion,” rumbled Balin, “or we are being haunted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I do intend to work more on this and draw out some much-needed apologies from certain dwarves. This is going to be sort of cracky angst. Also, this chapter is 100% un-betaed and then I felt compelled to post it at 2 am because I'm stupid, so corrections on spellings or really weird/unintelligible sentences are welcome on this chapter. Thanks!


	2. Volley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bilbo keeps hiding, as well as digging his own grave. The dwarves are distressed.

The dwarves, according to Hamfast, were still wandering the Shire, looking increasingly lost by the hour. They’d attempted to enter Bag End no less than three times despite being politely and consistently shooed every time the Gaffer or his wife even caught sight of them, so Bilbo clambered back through the window each night and slept on the floor of his bedroom. He felt like he was reenacting the journey to Erebor and after even a day of clunking around in his armor again, a bed seemed foreign, too soft.

So he’d rolled out an old blanket, curled up on the hardwood floor, and escaped through the window again in the morning.

He caught glimpses of the dwarves as he was out and about. He didn’t talk to them, didn’t even stand still long enough to make a rude gesture or call out an obscenity, only passed them by on his way to the woods. If they got too close to him, he had only to slip on his ring and then to a safe distance. He knew the Shire like the dwarves didn’t and he knew how to get around unseen, even without the aid of the ring. Whatever the dwarves wanted from him, it was guaranteed not to end well for him. They’d parted on terms that could only be called absolutely disastrous, if not some other, infinitely worse phrase. All he wanted was to get rid of them as fast as he could, all without ever interacting with the whole forsaken mess. It was a dream, but an unrealistic one.

Something would have to be done about them, soon, but for now Bilbo intended to fall back into old habits of self-sufficient traveling and orc-killing (as if orcs would come within a mile of the Shire after the Fell Winter) and enjoy himself as much as was possible. He wasn’t just hiding from the dwarves, either; the Sackville-Bagginses had gotten pushier and pushier since he’d demanded his spoons back and hadn’t gotten them. He’d lost much of the respectable reputation that had shielded his eccentricities in the past, a fact that was making many seemingly unrelated things very difficult for him. Even grocery shopping had become something of an ordeal; he’d yet to acquire the tolerance his mother had earned or the age that allowed hobbits to get away with doing whatever they damn well pleased. Instead, all he’d earned were stares and gossip.

Wandering in a mithril shirt and a traveling cloak probably wasn’t going to do any more damage than turning up half-dead in the company of one of the most notorious disturbers of the peace in the history of the Shire. He’d survive.

Just so long as those _blasted dwarves_ didn’t track him down.

* * *

Thorin was pretty sure—maybe even ninety percent sure, if he was pressured to stretch it—that there were way, way more hobbits than they had come across.

Had Bilbo not described the sprawling family trees that populated the Shire? How hobbits loved family and company and good food, preferably shared? How some of his relatives crammed all their children and every niece and nephew, aunt and uncle, cousin and in-law into one warm room for family suppers and second breakfasts?

The burglar, though thief he was, would not lie about something so trivial as his own people. Why would he? More to the point, why would such a creature as a homely hobbit lie about it? Why, of all the very few hobbits Thorin’s Company had ever met, would _Bilbo?_ Yes, the hobbit had learned to lie, even to lie well, during his tenure as the Master Burglar of a roving band of dwarves, but they had seen the pinnacle of these untruths in the midst of the Arkenstone debacle, when none of them had quite been at their best. On everything else, Bilbo Baggins had been completely honest.

Well, other than the many, many things that the hobbit had been strangely cagey about on the journey. Still, had he ever truly _lied?_ Thorin was of the (perhaps minority) opinion that he hadn’t.

Now, at least. He was of that opinion _now._ Now that he’d had a decade of regret and re-examination of his actions and the realization that the last thing he would have ever said to Bilbo Baggins, a most remarkable hobbit, was of the cruelest nature he’d ever managed.

Anyway, there were definitely supposed to be more hobbits running through the Shire than they’d seen.

Maybe the one who had taken over Bilbo’s hobbit hole had told others to be wary of the strange dwarves wandering their back roads.

“Thorin,” Balin advised after they’d spent another day traipsing about, hoping to find something new, “if we’re not here to lay our apologies for Master Baggins to rest, we should go home. If you want to see this through, we should ask that Gamgee fellow where we can find more of the Baggins family.”

He didn’t want to leave the Shire without completing their quest. They had come to finally apologize and to honor Bilbo as he should have been after the battle, and Thorin would see that through. Kinghood could wait, especially when he’d had more than enough time to surround himself with people competent and trusted enough to manage in his absence.

“Yes,” he grumbled back. It was getting dark and Thorin had no idea how much Hobbits generally slept, but he couldn’t be imposing too much on the tenant of Bilbo’s home, could he? “Let’s do that now.”

He called his dwarves to their feet and set out to Bag End.

Only to see their hobbit slip along the side of another hill, heading in the same direction. Gloin gave a shout and they raced after the specter, calling his name and, sometimes, begging his forgiveness. By the time they reached the hill, Bilbo had vanished. Of course he had. They’d seen the same phantom at least half a dozen times since setting foot in the Shire and had never become inured to the shock of catching even a fleeting glimpse of their late companion. Every time they saw him (or thought they’d seen him—once, it had simply been a woman in a particularly vibrant green scarf), he disappeared without a trace as soon as he’d appeared.

Resigned to his absence once again, the company set their sights on talking to Mr. Gamgee and learning where they could pay their respects, and to whom.

* * *

Bilbo wriggled through his window that night to see Hamfast staring at him, mouth agape.

“Mr. Baggins,” his gardener choked out.

Bilbo stood and futilely brushed himself off, trying in vain to preserve his dignity. “Hamfast,” he replied. “Did they come by again today?”

Hamfast shook his head. “Not seen them, sir. Hildebrand Boffin down the road said she saw ‘em trampin’ around like great big oliphants, she did, but they’ve not been up here. Can’t think what they’re doin’ around here still, but they’ve sure been scarin’ the little’uns.”

Bilbo knew that most young hobbits would be more curious than frightened of strangers wandering around the Shire, but the older ones were likely making use of the excuse, as they were wont to do. He nodded and ‘hmm’ed as seemed appropriate, already his thoughts moving ahead to the matter of what on earth the dwarves were still doing around, not to mention why they were in the Shire in the first place, ten years after Ravenhill and everything _that_ entailed. He bumbled through his hole, his head in the clouds and the past, as he made his way to the kitchen for dinner.

“Any idea of how to send ‘em off, sir?” Hamfast said eventually, which was enough of a change of tone and topic to jolt Bilbo back to the task at hand.

“Oh dear,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “No, not a one. ‘Specially when I’ve not the slightest inkling as to why they’re here at all! If only Gandalf, that dratted wizard, had said something more than ‘they’re coming’! Surely he would know why.”

“Could go ask the mayor to have them removed.”

After a moment of deliberation, Bilbo got out a pot and set himself to making a stew. “As if a bunch of hobbits could drive off determined dwarves! No, I think not. They’ll tire of this project of theirs at some point, and we can all outlast them, I should think.” He turned to his gardener, who looked very disappointed without the prospect of chasing a company of dwarves out of Hobbiton. “Now, Mr. Gamgee, what should go in stew, this time of year? You’re the expert, I dare say, in these matters.”

That appeased him somewhat, and he began listing what was in season and plentiful in the Gamgee garden at present. As soon as he’d finished his itemization, he scurried off to collect such vegetables that would suit the meal. Bilbo shuffled to dig out some of his cured meats from his pantry.

Which was why he didn’t realize the doorbell had been ringing until he was carting everything back to his kitchen.

It wasn’t Hamfast, he could be certain of that. Hamfast had a key, for one, and he hadn’t had nearly enough time to gather everything he’d promised to get. It _might_ be Bell, Hamfast’s wife, but just as likely it might not be, and she was liable to arrive with her husband.

It probably wasn’t the Sackville-Baggins or anyone of _that_ ilk, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so Bilbo set the meat down on the counter and crept to the window to peer out of it.

Dwarves!

Blasted, thrice-damned _dwarves_ were at his door like his very own curse!

Maybe he could hide inside and they would decide that no one at all was home. They would trot back off down the lane and finally, _finally,_ realize that no one here wanted to talk.

Yes, it was all _extremely_ likely.

He sighed and set off for his study, the _ring-ling-a-ling_ of his bell thrumming incessantly in the background.

What could he write that would persuade them to leave? What would drive them and their judgment from Bag End forever? What would they not think had come from him?

He scrawled a note on a scrap of paper and plodded back to the door, with one deep breath before he slid in through the tiny gap between the door and its frame.

* * *

“Look!” cried Dori, pointing at the bottom of the door. “Paper.”

Thorin crouched to tug it out, then read it aloud to the Company. _“Dear sirs, we have nothing more to say to you and would much rather you go bother some other hobbit. There is a family which is quite a nuisance in the Southfarthing, with whom you may occupy yourselves, known as the Sackville-Bagginses.”_ The name was underlined. _“Good evening.”_

“Bilbo’s relatives?” suggested Gloin.

“Maybe they’re angry that someone stole his house,” said Bifur, stroking his beard thoughtfully, “and that’s why this resident hates the Sackville-Bagginses, who are only trying to honor their relative.”

“Hamfast, he said he was,” Balin added.

There was a general grumbling consensus, which was interrupted by another paper slipping through the door.

_“Pray leave this property and busy yourselves with another hobbit.”_

The company stilled, then burst into a round of guffaws. The tone, prim but rife with snark, was all too familiar to them. It was the way Bilbo talked to them whenever he was particularly frustrated or berating them for their folly—even after ten years, it was easy to remember his stern frown.

The note didn’t seem much like Hamfast, though.

After a moment of consideration, Thorin pounded on the door.

Perhaps he should have anticipated the lack of reply, when the resident’s only communique was on paper, but it was hard to leave when they’d just found the voice of their burglar re-incarnated in a sweeping script passed under the door. They’d come to the Shire for answers and if they could not get them, they intended to find closure instead. Thanks to the phantom thief stealing through their periphery everyday, they hadn’t managed that yet. If anything, the whole affair had stirred up some rather unpleasant memories and undone a decade of mourning—no longer could they content themselves with the conclusion that Bilbo’s short, illustrious life was over and done with.

Thorin sent Gloin to the window to see if Bilbo’s usurper was near the door, or to have any idea of what was going on inside the house. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be seen, and it did indeed look as if there was no one home at all.

They huddled together, conferring, only to be interrupted by a third note.

_“This is an unnecessary use of your time. I beg you, remove yourselves and perhaps persue something of merit.”_

Gloin raced back to the window, craning his neck to see as much as possible. He turned back to the Company, shaking his head, but his hands were vibrating enough that they could all see it. His eyes were blown wide and Dori helped him steady himself as he rejoined the Company at the door.

“I don’t understand it,” he said. “There’s no way that they could get away from the door before I could see them. I don’t know where they could have hidden, either.”

After a moment of unnerved exchanging of glances, Balin said, “Bilbo. It must be Bilbo.”

Thorin looked down to the bottom of the door, half expecting another note, but there was none.

Staring fearfully at the door, Ori whispered, “Do you think he knows he’s dead?”

That brought them all up rather short. Of the many kinds of ghosts, it was easy enough to divide them into those that knew they were dead and those that didn’t. The living could never quite understand how it all felt, but they all had their own theories, for the afterlife is a popular subject among any crowd of people. Some claimed it was worst to remember death and to be haunted by it; often enough, these were dwarves haunted by their own horrors, who could think of little worse than that following them into their rest. Others feared the loneliness of being dead without knowing it, for who could you talk to when you were little more than a shade in the light? How could such a social creature as a hobbit survive the isolating terror of passing through old haunts, if such a turn of phrase could be pardoned, without so much as a ‘how goes it’ from old friends?

“Bilbo always was a bright lad,” Balin replied, though he was not wholly convincing. “He always seemed to know than we thought he ought, hmm? He’ll figure it out.”

Ori appeared to take great comfort in this; the rest of the Company looked only more unsettled. Dwalin crossed his arms and scanned the hobbit hole as if there could be some sign hung beneath a window that would answer his questions. But, alas, there was not, and he went without comfort.

It was then that a huffing and puffing hobbit ambushed them with a peircing “What’s all this, then?” that propelled them into motion.

It was the Gaffer, and he had picked out the best of his current crop for Mister Bilbo’s stew, which would no doubt be generously shared with him and Bell, who was carrying a basket of rolls she had baked earlier that day.

“Now, I like visitors as much as the next hobbit,” he began, as if this would either calm him down or make the rest of his speech more hospitable, “but by the hair on my feet, sirs, I’ve ‘ad just about enough of youse crowding up by door like a crop of mint!”

The dwarves did not know nearly enough about the propensity of mint to dominate entire gardens should they be left unchecked, but they had enough sense to understand that this was not complimentary.

“But you’re being haunted!” cried Kili, who apparently lacked the sense to keep this to himself.

A look of shock crossed the hobbit’s face, but it was easily replaced by boisterous laughter. “Haunted!” crowed Hamfast Gamgee. “Oh, yes, sirs, haunted indeed! See a ghost, did you? Get a chill? Best to leave such stuff to those queer folk out past Bree, hmm!” He kept chuckling as he pushed his way to the door and unlocked it. “Haunted! Oh, o’ course.”

Hamfast opened the door but there was nothing on the other side.

“A’right, now _git!_ I’ve got a stew to make and I don’t share with folk who camp out on my doorstep.” He grumbled something else under his breath about ‘good Master Bilbo,’ but it was too quiet to really hear. His wife followed him, making small apologies to the dwarves as they shuffled into the hobbit hole.

Then the door was shut, and Bilbo’s home was closed to the dwarves.

* * *

Bilbo had never heard such patently ridiculous stuff as that which the dwarves were muttering outside his door. He was a respectable sixty-one and the hobbits around him could never be called the brightest all of Middle Earth had to offer, but he had rather thought that he had met the upper limit of logical fallacies. And yet! here were dwarves, speaking of him as if he were dead, banging on his door at all hours. It would be déjà vu if not for the fact of their absolute certainty of his death or that he knew them all too well.

But he had his ring to keep him from their gaze and Sting on his hip. If they had come for their revenge, they would not get it.

Hamfast and Bell soon arrived and the three of them set to making a stew.

“You’ve got those dwarves of yours in a right tizzy, Mister Bilbo,” said Hamfast.

“They’re not _my_ dwarves,” Bilbo grumbled back, ignoring the ‘tizzy’ part as well as he could. “Why on earth would you think they’re mine?”

“Well, you’re all they talk about, don’t you know? They spend half the day chasin’ you through Hobbiton and the other half tryin’ to get into your house. If they’re here for anything else, I’ve not heard of it.” Hamfast kept chopping onions, only occasionally stopping to clear his eyes of water. “So there you go, Mister Bilbo. _Your_ dwarves.”

“They’re not,” Bilbo mumbled again, mostly to himself.

“They ain’t gonna leave until you make ‘em happy, sir, leastwise they won’t ‘til you talk with ‘em and set things straight. They’re right unhappy they are, and I don’t know a single thing that _I_ can do that’ll set it right.”

“And I would not expect you to, Hamfast. If they are nothing else of mine, they are my problem. I fear that my presence has brought them here, just as it did a decade ago, and there is little to be done but, one way or another, drive them off.” He sighed, then set down his knife. “If only I had never stolen from or for them as I did, that they had found another burglar altogether. Perhaps there would have been war, stretching even into now or beyond, but they would not have come for me.”

“Don’t take this as any kind of disagreement, Mister Bilbo. Us folk with good sense know that adventures don’t often end well. But I’ve heard enough from you that you at least liked how it started and how most of it ran, even if the ending wasn’t much to your liking. Would you really want to miss _all_ of it?”

“Yes!”

Hamfast gave him a shrewd look that did not wholly belong on the face of a gardner.

“…well, no, I suppose.”

Bell stuck her head in from another room and grinned at him. “I’m glad you’ve got sense enough to see that. We’re rubbing off on you, we are.”

“Better you on me than me on you, I suppose.”

“Well, why don’t you go do something else if you ain’t even going to chop carrots, eh?” Bell nudged Bilbo out of the way and took up the knife to finish with the carrots. “What’re you gonna do, then?”

“By all that’s holy, Bell Gamgee, I have no idea.” He dragged his hands through his hair, shaking it out like an idea might come loose. “Maybe if the damn wizard had given me more than a two day’s notice, I would’ve made a better plan. Instead, all I’ve got is this fool plan of running about Hobbiton in my thrice-damned _armor_ like some kind of lunatic!” His voice rose to a shriek and he clapped his hands over his mouth as if that would keep it all quiet.  
A knock came at the door. When no one leapt up to answer it, the door bell rang and someone hammered on the door again.

Bell rolled her eyes at Bilbo and Hamfast and moved into the front hall.

They heard the door creak open partially.

“My husband told you to go away rather clearly, I thought,” said Bell. “What’re you all still doing here?”

“We thought we heard voices,” replied a dwarf. Fili, by the sound of it.

“You did,” Bell answered without hesitation. “Me an’ my husband. We’re makin’ dinner.”

“No, three voices,” a different dwarf broke in. Probably Gloin. “You and your husband, yes, and another. Someone else entirely.”

There was a pause.

“No, just us two. You’re hallucinatin’, you are, the lot of you. It’s just me an’ my husband here.”

“No children?” Someone different again, but it was quieter and more difficult to identify.

“No, not a one. Well,” Bilbo could imagine how Bell held her stomach to punctuate it, “one on the way. But not here _yet,_ see? Got some months left ‘til they’re around to be making much noise what you can hear. Now clear off! We’ve got dinner to make.”

There was much muffled grumbling and the sound of clomping footfalls slowly faded from earshot.

“Bloody close, that was,” Bell remarked when she returned. “You’ve got to keep your voice down, Mister Bilbo, if you don’t want to be found out. After a week of this, you’d think you’d know that much.”

Bilbo groaned and knocked his head against the wall.

If only any of this was that simple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I think this will only be one or two more chapters, one of pranks and another of reconciliation, in all likelihood. I hope you enjoyed this!


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